There was no other incident, it was a shooting.

The Duggan shooting 'triggered' (set off; initiated) the rioting.

So but for the shooting there wouldn't have been a riot.

(I'm just talking about Tottenham here. Not other parts of the UK)

The shooting did not initiate any rioting, it initiated a protest match and angry response. An incident at the protest gathering initiated some violence. The weak police response caused others to see an opportunity for looting and rioting. It's what's known as a chain of events rather than direct causality.

A causes B; B causes C; C causes D. That does not mean A caused D, or even necessarily C, despite being linked. Please try and understand that.

To say that without the shooting there would have been NO riots is to say there were no other reasons people rioted, which is clearly not true. The main cause of the initial violence -underlying anger against the police - would have been triggered by another event. That it was the shooting of Mark Duggan is largely irrelevant.

The clear difference between 'the Duggan thing' and the rest is that 'the Duggan thing' is the only single incident on there. The rest are perceptions of society and communications. Whilst nobody would argue that the rest of the issues weren't contributory factors, 'the Duggan thing' was the actual incident which set off the chain of events of which the riots were the consequence.

If A does not happen, then neither does C or D.

No one has said otherwise. It's called a chain of events.

That still doesn't mean A actually caused anything beyond B.

A (Shooting of Mark Duggan)

C (Riot)

Take away A, and C doesn't happenn.

Ie, No shooting, no riot.

It's clearly beyond him. I'll leave him in his ignorance.

The majority agree with me, best to leave us all in our ignorance.

So its all Mark Duggans mothers fault, if she hadnt got pregnant all those years ago , there wouldnt have been any riots

All sorted

I did mention a few pages back that he was a nutter.

Didn't expect him to demonstrate it so aptly though.

C can still happen without A.
C could depend on B.
C could happen independently of both A and B.
They are all possibilities.
Would you accept that just from a mathematical point of view (or logical point of view)?
If you accept that, you can't definitely say A caused C.

Love how when people are losing an argument on this messageboard they immediately resort to dishing out abuse.

It's funny because it seems like it's the mods who do it most often, aren't they the ones supposed to be enforcing the rules?

I bet if I was to start dishing it out in response then I would be first to get banned too.

I've already had a 'warning' off a moderator for him abusing me?!

If you don't agree with my points, debate it out. Don't just start dishing out abuse. It really is quite immature that you can't construct an argument without resorting to abuse.